[Solved] I7-860 ssd build - opinions?

As a preamble, it is pretty confusing right now for 1366/1156 -- I am really not clear on why I would want one over the other. So I'm not really wedded to anything here -- just looked like a good selection of parts. And I'm eager to buy. My greatest current annoyance is boot time and load time, problems which I believe are addressed by the SSD drive. My gaming is fairly primitive (at the moment) -- Silent Hunter III and IL2.

Cost before shipping is $2,134.51 -- All comments welcome!
I will be re-using 2tb of conventional disk for storage. This machine should be fast but quiet, and good for 3 years .


APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: this week
BUDGET RANGE: (e.g.: 1200-2500) Before Rebates
SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: photoshop, surfing internet, games, movies, video editing
PARTS NOT REQUIRED: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: newegg.com
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA
PARTS PREFERENCES: Intel cpu, super fast boot drive
OVERCLOCKING: Yes, why not
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: No
MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1680x1050
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Fast but quiet, good for 3 years

SSD: Corsair CMFSSD-256GBG2D 2.5" 256GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) $719.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820233085

SSD adapter: StarTech BRACKET25 Adapter Kit to Mount 2.5" HDD in 3.5" Drive Bay $13.59
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811993005

Mobo: MSI P55-GD65 LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard $159.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811129021

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811129021

PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply $169.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139010

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory Model F3-16000CL9D-4GBRH $119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231281

CPU: i7-860 $289.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115214

CD/DVD/BD: LG Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-ROM SATA Internal Combo LG Blu-ray Reader & 16X LightScribe DVD±R DVD Burner $129.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827136162

Graphics: MSI N275GTX Lightning GeForce GTX 275 1792MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card $324.9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127443

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6832116754

i see that you are investing into an expensive computer, and you are (likely) going to overclock. So how about some cooling, eg case fans and heat sink...

i was referring more towards your cpu. this only matters if your planning to overclock though because your case already comes with a couple fans. if you overclock the heatsink that comes with you CPU will be insufficient.

yes, a cpu cooler is s good idea.

SSD isn't that fantastic seriously, it's kinda overrated. The life of SSDs is 5 years and their performance decrease more you use them.

You should take a look a this:
http://www.presence-pc.com/actuali [...] tor=RSS-11

Obviously, you are wrong. I give you a chance, link to me performance decrease.

From what I understand, TRIM mostly resolved any problem that might have existed, but I could be mistaken... I've never heard of this problem before, so I'll do a little research and see what I find.

Here's a good test of TRIM (requires Windows 7) : http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3667. Without TRIM, performance drops significantly over time.

"TRIM addresses a major part of the performance degradation over time issue that plague all SSDs. A TRIM enabled drive running an OS with TRIM support will stay closer to its peak performance over time."

from anandtech.com
Updated: The SSD Improv: Intel & Indilinx get TRIM, Kingston Brings Intel Down to $115
Date: October 26th, 2009
Topic: Storage
Manufacturer: Various
Author: Anand Lal Shimpi

Here it is: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3667

`` Concrètement, le TRIM consiste à effacer physiquement les données au moment de la suppression, contrairement à la technique habituelle qui consiste à marquer les données supprimées sans les effacer réellement. Avec le TRIM, le SSD est capable de voir où sont les données effacées et donc évite de chercher à les trouver. Petit défaut de la technologie, les effacements sont physiques, ce qui ralentit un peu la suppression de fichiers, mais les performances dans le temps devraient rester stables. Actuellement, le TRIM est rare, mais Intel devrait proposer un firmware compatible rapidement, tout comme Samsung (même si la politique de ce dernier pose des problèmes, les mises à jour étant réservées aux OEM). Reste le plus gros problème : il faut que le système d'exploitation (ou tout du moins le pilote qui gère le système de fichier) soit compatible, et seul Windows 7 l'est actuellement, en NTFS.``

Windows 7 is ONLY compatible with TRIM. It means that your SSD does not come with that function and you have to update it. However, most SSD do not support this software and intel was supposed to fix this.
I just saw your link to anandtech but you probably haven't noticed this:
Intel: “Yes, we have been contacted by users with issues with the firmware upgrade and are investigating. We take all sightings and issues seriously and are working toward resolution. We have temporarily taken down the firmware link while we investigate.”
So actually you are doing the update at your own risk, there's still some SSD uncompatible with the updates.
You should recommand to every new SSD builder to wait few week to see what's intels conclusion about this.

@olbnyc: There's a HUGE distinction betwen useful life and mean time betwen failure. You are confounding these terms...
When intel call a minimal useful life of 5 years, it means it is supposed to not die until that. In other word, it's the manufacturers warranty, they'll replace it if it dies before the specified time.

Last I knew, Patriot has a 10 Year warrenty on their SSDs. Both the Torqx and the vortex have their own utillity for keeping the SSD "Almost " new in their performance in vista and have support for trim. While they are not the performance King (4K random read/writes much lower than Intel) they are a good choise if looking for larger size (120 gigs vs 80 Gigs) Just a question of performance vs size vs cost - Users preference. PS I have both the intel 80 gig G2R5 (for desk top, not installed yet) and the Patriot Torqx 128 gig (in laptop)

Me thinkest powerfuel needs a recharge

Added: Two torqx or vortex 120 Gigs in a raid 0 = 240 gigs would cost less ( approx $450 -> $500) than the Intel 160 gig (144 gigs for Approx $600) and in terms of performance would be PRETTY GOOD. Note only draw back I see is in updating the firmware - not sure you can when configured in Raid0

Warrantees and "Expected Life" DO NOT allway equate. Some good comparisons can be found in looking at HDDs. Even if the "Expected" life is say 10 years, a 10 year warranty cost the company more than a 5 year warranty - has to do with length of support and quantity of parts are required to be kept on hand.. A very good example is in a CRT. Bougth a CRT (Wholesale), the clerk placed the CRT on the counter - Total cost varied by length of warranty - I picked the shortest warrenty @ the least cost - The warrenty did not affect how long the CRT would last one iota.

You can always do a clone, zero-write the SSD, restore the clone. This will reset the performance level of an SSD to factory defaults. Ofcourse this will eat up write cycles.